There are two businesses behind this question and only one of them is an equipment yard. Hiring a box truck to move a household is vehicle rental, and the truck and van hire firms do it. What a plant yard offers is different: working trucks with tail lifts for moving machines and materials between sites, and lift gate delivery of the equipment you rent. This page is about the second.
What a lift gate is rated to carry
The gate is a hydraulic platform on the back of the truck, and it has its own capacity independent of the truck's payload. Yard trucks commonly carry gates rated somewhere near 1,500 to 3,000 lb, and the rating falls if the load sits at the outer edge of the platform. Weigh what you are lifting before assuming it fits.
What the yard keeps against what a hire firm keeps
Plant yards run flatbeds and stake trucks with gates, tag trailers and the occasional service body, all of it built to move plant and material. Truck hire firms run box vans with gates for furniture and pallets. The pricing, the insurance and the driver requirements are different in each case, which is why the two rarely cross.
The gate you probably want is on the delivery
Most people asking this only need the machine on the ground at their site. That is the yard's delivery, quoted out and back, and the truck already has the means to unload. Say what the ground and the access look like when you book, because a gate needs firm level standing at the tailboard to work at all.
Unloading at the other end without a gate
Where the truck has no lift, hiring a pallet jack, a walkie stacker or a forklift at the destination is often cheaper than paying for a gate truck for the whole hire. It also puts the lifting where the load actually goes rather than at the kerb. Compare the two before defaulting to the truck.
Questions people ask about rental trucks with lift gates
Can an equipment yard rent me a truck for a house move?
Not usually, and it is the wrong counter to ask at. Household moving trucks come from vehicle rental firms, who insure and licence them for that use. A plant yard's trucks are working vehicles for moving equipment, and most go out with the yard's own driver.
Does a lift gate need a special licence to operate?
The gate itself does not, but whoever uses it should be trained on that specific unit, and the truck it is attached to has its own weight class and licence rules. Ask the yard for the operating instructions and the gate rating at handover.
Will a lift gate load a mini excavator?
Almost never. Even a 1 ton machine is at or beyond the capacity of most gates and the platform is the wrong shape for tracks. Machines go on a tag trailer with ramps or a beavertail, which is how yards deliver them in the first place.